Becoming a Member of the Graduate Faculty

3.3 (3) Graduate Faculty Membership

Definition

Graduate faculty are those faculty approved by the Dean of the Graduate School and Graduate Council to teach graduate courses and/or to offer direct assistance to graduate students in their graduate programs. Teaching graduate courses does not automatically confer graduate faculty status.

Eligibility

All full-time tenured or tenure-earning faculty who possess the earned doctorate/terminal degree in the teaching discipline or a related discipline are eligible to become members of the graduate faculty. Nontenure-earning faculty who otherwise fulfill the eligibility criteria may become members of the graduate faculty when the particular case, as determined by the Dean of the Graduate School, warrants.

Criteria

The initial appointment of faculty to graduate status, whether for current faculty new to graduate programs or faculty new to UNF, may be recommended to the Dean of the Graduate school at any time. Academic departments with graduate programs will recommend qualified faculty who are, or will be, actively involved with teaching graduate courses and/or offering direct assistance to graduate students for appointment to the graduate faculty. The Dean of the College will review each such nomination and add a recommendation. (The College Dean has the right not to forward names she/he does not judge to be appropriate.) The nomination will then be forwarded to the Dean of the Graduate School.

Each college has specific criteria for graduate faculty status which have been approved by the appropriate dean, by the Graduate Council, by the Dean of the Graduate School, and by the Vice President for Academic Affairs. Once approved, these criteria form the basis on which each college makes its recommendations to the Dean of the Graduate School and the Graduate Council for appointment to and retention of graduate faculty status. These criteria capture in ways determined by the faculty in a particular college to be appropriate to that college (1) active involvement with teaching graduate courses and/or offering direct assistance to graduate students, (2) appropriate pursuit of a scholarly agenda, and (3) instructional effectiveness in her/his graduate level courses.

A member of the graduate faculty who is a professor is reviewed every ten years, beginning from the time she/he was promoted to professor. A member of the graduate faculty who is an associate professor or an assistant professor with tenure is reviewed every five years, beginning from the time she/he was promoted to associate professor or was awarded tenure, respectively. Tenure-earning members of the graduate faculty are reviewed at the time of hire.

If the case provided by the candidate demonstrates that the College-specific criteria are met, as judged by the College Dean and endorsed by the Dean of the Graduate School, the Graduate Council will consider the graduate faculty member to have achieved renewal.